


Swear To Me You'll Never Leave

by SofterSoftest



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25793047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofterSoftest/pseuds/SofterSoftest
Summary: An AU in which Violet Baudelaire is inducted on the eve of her thirteenth birthday.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Swear To Me You'll Never Leave

* * *

*

She knows, however often the title seems to be mocked, that she went voluntarily. 

That the moment Violet Baudelaire heard tires on the street and the clap of a car door shutting, she said to the empty, dark house very intentionally, “What was that noise?” 

Tradition and ritual having become so ingrained in her upbringing, she even answered herself, muttering as if another person, “Ah, silly girl, it was nothing. No sensible person would be out at this hour.”

Then, again to herself, feeling equally foolish and obligated, “If there’s nothing out there, then what was that noise?”

In the face of her induction, this repetition of phrases is what keeps her calm. Violet climbs the winding staircase and crawls into bed still in her day clothes, wide awake, and tries not to think of how her life will change once she is thrown into the back of a long black car. She is barely fearful, only anxious to have the process over and done with, to be finally placed where she belongs. 

She waits, and dozes. Time passes. 

It is a pair of unfamiliar men that drag her from her bed. 

When she envisioned her induction growing up, she always expected at least one of the men to be close to her heart, for someone to have wormed his way into induction duty that particular night. She expected to recognize a voice as the men grunted, lifting her, to whisper a name, her voice small with secrecy,  _ “Jacques?” _ or, as she had always hoped,  _ “Lemony?” _

Instead, the men wake her by yanking her blankets away, by gripping her ankles and hauling her from the bed, uncaring at the way she hits the floor or how her dress rucks up. Violet grips the fabric, holds it in fists to her sides as she is taken away.

Their hands are not gentle with familiarity but strong with duty and practice. 

Even as they drag her from her childhood home, out of individual identity, Violet follows instruction and does not scream. 

“ _ There _ she is.” A voice breaks through the darkness of the car as the men toss her inside, sounding sickly-sweet and devilish. She lands hard, knocking her head against the window as the door is slammed shut, her balance off and her mind fuzzy. “Such a brave girl. Inducted on the eve of her thirteenth birthday, no less. You must be very upset.”

Even from his voice, she recognizes the man instantly. She has heard him infrequently throughout her youth and spoken to him even less, yet every time Count Olaf visited the Baudelaire mansion (for parties or meetings or meetings disguised as parties - ) Violet felt hyperaware of his presence in a way she could never pinpoint, like sensing a phantom in a crowded room. She would watch him interact with her parents or other visitors with uneasy fascination, her heart hammering.

“No - ” Violet insists, rising, stunned by the appearance of the Count and the lurch of the car as the other men climb into the front seats and begin to drive. She does not know how to explain the loyalty she feels to VFD - as if it were genetic, hereditary, factual as her heartbeat. “I’m not upset. I belong here.”

Her life before this very moment had been distorted and fractured by absence. Now, jostling about as the car speeds away, Olaf’s shiny eyes on her in the dark, she wonders if this feeling of belonging so wholly to something other than herself is like falling in love - fast and wretched as having her throat cut. 

“Very true, Miss Baudelaire. It’s in your blood. Speaking of which, let’s get started,” Olaf says, smug and untroubled. Violet watches his hands through a snag of moonlight, sees the exact moment he touches her knee as easily as a lover, yet already she is complying, knowing what is next. 

Violet leans back, her head against the window, her feet in the man’s lap. He grips her behind the knees, steadying, then brushes back down to cradle her left ankle. In the low light she watches him shift, grabbing things rolling on the floor. There is a sudden wave of pure alcohol in the air as he drops a rag on her skin, cleaning just above the bone, before tossing it away. 

“Now, talk to me, Violet,” Olaf says, and only then does she see the long needle in his hands, glinting, wet with ink. She glances to the man’s face, holding his gaze, finding it intrigued and focused, a strange heat to his eyes. “Explain your devotion to VFD.”

_ To me _ , she hears instead, feeling confused and decimated and suddenly feverish.

A particularly nasty bump rattles the car. Violet winces against it, clarity dawning. 

“To VFD. I am - entirely devoted. Helplessly. Wholly,” she admits, knowing it is true.

“Swear to me you’ll never leave,” Olaf says. Violet sees the long needle waiting ready in his hand, his fingers wrapped around her ankle, his eyes on only her.

“I swear,” she says, like taking a vow. 

Olaf grins, wicked as she’s ever seen him, as the first prick of ink stains her skin.

*

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another little draft found in the dusty files of my computer. Let me know what ya think!


End file.
